Enjoy the Diabetes

Take a second to notice the qualifier drinks in that second one. Most Americans only familiarize themselves with juice’s tweeker step-brother. Meaning the “contains 0% juice” crowd. MinuteMaid, Gatorade, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc., these will all cost more

There’s plenty of reasons to stand against this: taxing vices is legislating morality; the permanent search for new taxes to fuel government’s expanse, etc. But, let’s be honest. No one’s ruining your freedom by throwing a couple extra pennies on your caloric reliance on sugary beverages, which over a lifetime all but promise to give you diabetes. You should have to pay for your poor health choices. Especially when these choices grow into bad habits in your kids.

And the perpetrators aren’t innocent. We’ve all seen them. Particularly in the lower middle class Dachau known as Walmart. Those large, miserable mothers piling sodas and bright colored bottles of neon liquids underneath their carts. Mom’s have a reason for this. They don’t give a fuck what their kids eat. They just want an end to the whining. Its true. A mother at my work explained the trials of parenthood. The end result is that you’ll do anything to get your kids to shut up. Unless, you know, you’re a good parent. And you don’t take shit from someone who still wets the bed.

If they cared about their kids, would they hedge their bets with diabetes and obesity, not to mention cavities and metabolic conditions? Yet some tax conscious buyers choose to ignore the warnings, they need the government to tell them what’s bad for their kids.

Like liquor and cigarettes, the government should classify these drinks as a needless vice. One that puts additional tax burden through health costs on the rest of the country.